TP Poly Rythmo de Cotonou 2009by Yovo » Fri Sep 18, 2009 8:42 am25 years after I first heard the music of TP Poly Rythmo de Cotonou I finally had the chance to see them live.It was a nice, warm late summer evening when I rode on my bike to the venue where the concert was to be. It is called Doornroosje, which is the Dutch name for Sleeping Beauty, the fairy tale princess – a reminder of the hippie days when it was founded. It was only a 15 minute ride and as I breathed the soft air I had a feeling that tonight the prince might come to give her the waking up kiss. On arriving, I inspected the stage that was already set and then went to the bar to greet some friends. We discussed the low entrance fee of only 15 euro and compared it to the fee of the Amsterdam concert two days later, which was about 3 times as expensive. Lucky us!As we watched the people get inside, we noticed that there were almost no Africans. I missed my Beninese friend Alfred, but I guessed he couldn’t come, as he is a musician himself. We also noticed that there were quite a few young people, college students. In this part of the world, African concerts are mostly attended by elderly men and women. I don’t complain, I am one of them, but it was refreshing to see so many new faces. The concert took off at about 9.20 pm with a kick start beginning that set the scene for the rest of the show. It was a fast Afro funk tune that set the place ablaze. It was their way of telling us that this would be it: no excuses, no room for doubt – it would be a long night and they would have no mercy. They would take no prisoners. We all would leave K.O.The band was 11 piece strong: 2 singers, 2 guitar players, a horn section of tenor, alto and trumpet, a keyboardman and a 3 piece rhythm section of bass, drums and conga drums. Mélomé Clément, chef d’orchestre, commanded the horn section with his alto sax and pork pie hat. To his left, tenor man Loko Pierre honked out some powerful solos, as did guitar player Maximus Adjanohoun, who in his most frenzied moments evoked the spirit of the late great Papillon, who must have guided his fingers along the fretboard. Singer Vincent Ahehehinnou did most of the talking. He also jumped off the stage a couple of times to dance with the audience. At the age of 58 he behaved like a young man, a bouncing ball of energy. Nobody really cared that the guitars were out of tune sometimes and that the sound was off. I don’t know who’s fault it was, the sound engineers, the equipment, the acoustics of the venue – an old school made into a youth center 40 years ago and in dire need of some rebuilding – but sometimes it seemed as if the band was playing behind heavy curtains. The sound was muddy. You couldn’t hear the singers’ voices and the horns sometimes drowned in the overall sound. But like I said, nobody cared much. It must have been the power of the band, the drive of the music, the irresistible rhythms that drove everyone mad.At one point, I looked behind me and no matter how I tried, I couldn’t find anybody that was not dancing. There was so much energy projecting from the stage that the room was really cooking.Halfway the set Vincent Ahehehinnou announced a special tribute to the late Gnonnas Pedro, but nobody really understood him because of his awkward English. Nevertheless they played a respectful and steaming version of Von O Non Non. It was followed by the blazing rumba Le Silence N’Pas Un Oublie, with its haunting refrain of Mea Maxima Culpa. There were a couple of more tunes that I recognized without remembering the title. Most of the show consisted of heavy afro funk infused with Beninese voodoo rhythms. There were other rhythms, some salsa, some reggae, and a long, extended afrobeat that served as a vehicle for introducing the band members. By that time the audience had totally surrendered. We begged for more. We pleaded for more. They made us shout “Poly-Rythmo, Poly-Rythmo” untill our throats were sore. Then they returned for the encores. Mélomé Clément took the stage front and started the smashing hit Gbeti Madjro, one of their oldest songs, with keyboard player Moïse Loko providing the James Brown screams. The second encore featured bass player Bentho Gustave, a quiet man who had been standing out of the spotlights most of the time but now did some guitar acrobatics with his bass behind his back. When I looked at my watch I saw they had been playing non stop for almost two hours – but it seemed much longer. What a show! This band, I realized, totally earned their “Tout Puissant” sobriquet – Almighty indeed. I had been watching one of the legendary bands of West Africa, no, let me say all of Africa. I couldn’t leave immediately, I had to drink away the sweat and talk, talk, talk. The prince had come to kiss the Sleeping Beauty, and she was wide awake.